mart

[quote name='eude' timestamp='1358333681' post='1937027']
Oooh, I like that!
Is there a list price for these yet? I guess it might be pretty pricey...

Eude
[/quote]
No, just about every other new item is on their pricelists, but not that amp.

Hmm, this is still a little confusing. Did your preamp originally have a separate tone pot in addition to its 3-band EQ? And is your blend (centre detent) pot different from the concentric stacked pot you were talking about in your first post? And it would be a great help if you could give us a model number for the preamp so we can know exactly what the connections to it are.

In any case, to put your circuit together, you should probably first have a good look at this one: [url="http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=jazz_bass_blend"]http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=jazz_bass_blend[/url]
The blend control there is probably what you need to begin with, and it's connected to the pickups in just the way you need. Note how there are two crossed wires on the blend pot; one side of the cross goes off to the casing on the tone control, i.e. to earth. The other is the live "output" from the blend. In that diagram it goes to the volume control, but you probably want it feeding into your preamp. And then you'll want the output from your preamp going to your master volume.

My '94 Stage 2 had a 3x9v battery compartment for the LEDs. (and a further 2 batteries in the main compartment for the preamp - yes, 45v total!)

It certainly looked factory-fitted; if it wasn't, it was a mighty neat job by whoever fitted it.

Sadly I've now sold the bass, and don't have any photos to hand showing the battery compartment.

Here's that sticky I mentioned: http://basschat.co.uk/topic/21840-thru-body-stringing-vs-bridge-only/

I'm with brensabre in thinking its not worth doing. I'd be very surprised if you could hear much difference, though it is possible there will be a slight improvement. There's a sticky thread somewhere on basschat about the advantages of thru-body stringing that might be worth looking at.

One thing though: this will definitely NOT add to your bass's value. Almost all purchasers want a bass in its original condition, since, unless they know the buyer, they will presume that any mods have been done amateurishly rather than professionally.

If you still decide to go ahead (and these kinds of projects are fun, even if they bring no long-term benefit), you could take the badass off and look to see now much impression it has left on the finish, before buying another bridge and committing to the full project.

I opted for short nails and, I suppose, a consequently softer classical tone. That worked for me, but then I was never that good at the classical. At the end of the day, you've just got to choose which to compromise on. Or grow an extra right hand!

Thanks for all the replies guys - I am now slightly less of a mic-noobie than I was before!

[url="http://www.guitarvillage.co.uk/product/13533/Fender-Mexico-Pawn-Shop-Bass-VI-New-3-Tone-Sunburst-Inc-Gigbag.aspx"]http://www.guitarvil...Inc-Gigbag.aspx[/url]
And somebody said Manson's facebook page had a pic suggesting they actually had one in stock.

[quote name='Monckyman' timestamp='1357679485' post='1926745']
Or a mic with a switch..
[/quote]
Er, why? Sorry, that's a genuine noobie question - what's the problem with mics with switches? Is it just singers who forget to flick the switch?

Well, the McNach that wrote that thread on the Warwick forum is also a member on here, so you could PM him for advice (although he'll probably see this thread and comment!)

I recently had vaguely similar problems with the preamp on my Thumb. I just unsoldered all the connections and resoldered them and it worked. It seems to have been a dodgy connection to one of the pots. Maybe that's worth a go?

Alternatively, since it's a CS, you could email Warwick and they might be able to help? They are generally pretty helpful, although they weren't when my Thumb had its problems. But CS customers ought to get better treatment.

Plastic hammer will work on some pickups, and on others it may kill the pickup. There was recently some brief discussion on this (in the context of Strat pickups) on MusicRadar:
[url="http://forum.musicradar.com/showthread.php?121285-Strat-warble&p=1398797&viewfull=1#post1398797"]http://forum.musicradar.com/showthread.php?121285-Strat-warble&p=1398797&viewfull=1#post1398797[/url]

[quote name='Roland Rock' timestamp='1357733246' post='1927348']
[url="http://www.lunaguitars.com/about.php"]http://www.lunaguitars.com/about.php[/url]
[/quote]
I knew I'd seen a review somewhere of a bass "designed for women". It was a Luna. Thanks for finding a link!

Yep, the manual says clearly that you can use the headphone output without having any speakers attached.
[quote]
A speaker load is not required.
[/quote]

[quote name='Mornats' timestamp='1357670714' post='1926447']
I have a Rockbase Corvette with active pickups and it's as powerful as my other basses. The difference must be passive vs. active I think.
[/quote]
It's really not just simply a passive/active thing. Yes, the active pups on your Corvette, like the active pups on my Thumb, are great, and powerful. But the passive pickups fitted to some corvettes are also fine. I've only heard a few complaints about regular MEC passive pickups, and then mainly about their passive P pups. Whereas the pups on the Streamer Standard get loads of grumbles.

A bolt-on Thumb, with retail price of £2939 for the 4-string, so just a tiny bit above the RRP for the regular Thumb BO. That seems to be the only info that's public so far.

Am I the only one seeing a Zender influence in your sofa?

Excellent! A bass sounds so much better when you've wired it up yourself, too!

First question: do you just want to use these as humbuckers, or do you want to be able to split the coils too?

If you want to split, then obviously you'll need more switching, so let's assume you don't. In that case you want to tape off the red and white joined wires, so they do not short against anything else. You also want to link all the earths together (you've got two earths so that you can reverse the polarity on one of the pickups, but again I'm assuming you don't want to do that). Then the greens from each of the pickups should go to the three-way switch, with the output from it taking the place of the white wire from your previous pickup.

Hopefully that will help a bit. The Seymour Duncan site is also a fantastic resource for all sorts of wiring diagrams - google should find it very easily.

I've got a Hartke combo that also makes a loud thud when turned on or off. It's always done it, and worked perfectly reliably for about 5 years now, so it's not something I worry about.

But it's definitely a bassy thud, nothing like the sort of crackly sound you get when unplugging a bass with the amp on.

This site http://home.provide.net/~cfh/fender.html is a mine of useful info about Fender serials.

[quote name='arthurhenry' timestamp='1357375695' post='1921691']
There's currently a Tele bass on ebay with the same neck heel date stamp as mine - 23rd May '72. ...
[/quote]
Isn't that "23" just the code for that type of bass? Certainly all Strats around that time had a stamp starting with "22" because that was the code for a Strat neck. So you'll see eBay ads saying that it was date-stamped as, e.g. 22nd Jun 71, when actually "22 Jun 71" just means it was a Strat made in June 1971.

So this bass was probably just made in the same month as yours.

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1357245773' post='1919892']
Regarding the weakness of the pickups, if the Streamer is like my Rockbasses I imagine that there may be a difference between active and passive versions of the electronics. My two active ones sound powerful enough to me even when plugged directly into the amp, but they're not as good as "Warwicks with a W".
[/quote]
The Streamer Standard has a different pickup to any other Warwick, and I'm pretty sure they only come in a passive version. I guess a preamp could compensate for a weak pickup to some extent. But my impression with the other Warwick models was that there was a significant difference between their passive pickups and their active pickups; i.e. it's not just the preamp that makes the difference.

Wasn't it Miles Davis that said that typos don't matter in jazz ...

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1357238803' post='1919689']
Aw feck, they are upside down!
[/quote]
Oh, that's okay - just turn the bass upside down.

I kind of agree with where KiOgon is heading: it's an odd way to run a blend control if you already have a master volume on the bass - a single shaft blend pot would be more usual.